"Nobody hates them for being successful. And not that this needs repeating, but nobody even minds that they are rich.
"What makes people furious is that they have stopped being citizens.
"Most of us 99-percenters couldn’t even let our dogs leave a dump on the sidewalk without feeling ashamed before our neighbors. It’s called having a conscience: even though there are plenty of things most of us could get away with doing, we just don’t do them, because, well, we live here. Most of us wouldn’t take a million dollars to swindle the local school system, or put our next door neighbors out on the street with a robosigned foreclosure, or steal the life’s savings of some old pensioner down the block by selling him a bunch of worthless securities."
- Matt Taibbi
The Oppressed Rich
“I live my life paying my taxes and taking care of my responsibilities, and I’m a little surprised to find out that I’m an enemy of the state at this time in my life”
“[The 1%] are not the scourge that they are too often made out to be”
“Acting like everyone who’s been successful is bad and because you’re rich you’re bad, I don’t understand it. Sometimes there’s a bad apple, yet we denigrate the whole.”
“Capitalism means private losses and private profits. It doesn’t mean private profits and socialized losses.”
“I am a fat cat, I’m not ashamed. If you mean by fat cat that I’ve succeeded, yeah, then I’m a fat cat. I stand guilty of being a fat cat.”
“If I hear a politician use the term ‘paying your fair share’ one more time, I’m going to vomit”
“Instead of an attack on the 1 percent, let’s call it an attack on the very productive”
“Who gives a crap about some imbecile? Are you kidding me?”
“I strived to be a good person”
“Recession? Spare us the national economic pity party”
